


Where the wild things are

by Miss_Six



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 07:25:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Six/pseuds/Miss_Six
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The nightmares had started with the tapering of his pain medication. They were possibly a symptom of the withdrawals. They were probably a symptom of trauma. Neither of those explanations were helping him sleep any better at night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the wild things are

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snack_size](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snack_size/gifts).



> Many thanks to [Sirenidae](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sirenidae/pseuds/Sirenidae) for being my last-minute beta! Prompt: "Yancy lives, Chuck lives...just anything with these two. Especially if it makes Raleigh and Herc's heads sort of explode, even with them just getting along or being friends." A short bit of "They're alive because reasons" fluff. Enjoy!

_he sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks_

His hearing was the first sense to return, making itself known with a gentle beep that kept a steady rhythm. The voices arrived next...they mingled with the conversations in his head until it became obvious that they were coming from an outside source, and annoyance flared in his chest at the intrusion. The weightlessness he’d been floating in dissolved and he lay like a stone, heavy and immobile.

_please don’t go we’ll eat you up we love you so_

The gentle beeping became frantic and his eyelids fluttered, then opened. A sharp intake of breath to his right, then a man standing over him, his face drawn with concern and exhaustion.

“Charlie...Chuck.” The man’s voice triggered a wave of irritation, but he wasn’t sure why. “Do you know where you are?”

Speaking was difficult - the words got stuck in his throat, gravelly and sharp. “Where’s Max?” he rasped.

The last thing he registered was the look of disappointment mixed with relief on the man’s face before he slipped back into the darkness.

\----------------------------------

The days that followed were a drugged blur, full of revelations that might have stung if Chuck didn’t feel so numb. Raleigh and Mako had succeeded where he and Stacker had failed. (“You made it possible,” Herc told him, but there was a great empty hole instead of the pride he should have felt.) Most of Striker had been utterly obliterated, save for the Conn-Pod, which they’d ejected at the last possible second. (Chuck couldn’t remember making that decision. He couldn’t remember most of the mission, really.) Stacker was in the next room, still in a coma that he may never come out of. Herc split his time between them, a show of dedication that Chuck noted with some bitterness. (His father hadn’t given him that much attention when his mother died, but he was supposed to have forgiven that, wasn’t he?)

What bothered him the most was finding out he may never walk again. To be more specific, what bothered him was his absolute absence of emotion when he found out he may never walk again. Too early to tell, so much swelling, can’t be sure of the permanent damage. We can’t be sure, but we don’t want to give you false hope.

(Even false hope would be better than the nothing in his soul.)

\-------------------------------------

Bedridden three weeks, Chuck was getting pretty quick with a Rubik’s Cube.

It was a present from Mako. She didn’t say a word when she dropped it off, just strode into his room with that sense of purpose she carried everywhere with her, and when she saw he was awake she set it on his chest and nodded and left before he could think of how to respond.

They’d had their differences, but of course she would remember how miserable he got when he didn’t have anything to keep his hands busy. It made him feel grateful, with a hint of ironic amusement, and he cherished it because it was the first emotion besides anger that he’d felt since he came to.

He was clicking away at it with gusto when an unfamiliar voice shattered his concentration. “You’re pretty good with that thing.”

Chuck didn’t lift his eyes. “Yeah, well, being stuck in a bed with nothing else to do is a great motivator.”

“I’d give it a shot, but my fine motor skills aren’t what they used to be.” Chuck finally looked up to take in the man leaning against the doorframe, noting his great jawline, his blond hair, and the robotic arm attached to his right elbow, just past the sleeve of his gray t-shirt. His other arm looked to be intact, and he had a thumb hooked through the belt loop of his jeans. Smiling, he lifted the prosthetic, making the mechanical fingers waggle with a soft whirring.

Curiosity overrode his desire to tell his visitor to fuck off. “That’s pretty wicked looking. How’d you lose it?”

“Took a kaiju to the Conn-Pod, or that’s what they tell me.” He shrugged. “I don’t actually remember that part, to be honest.”

“Oh, that’s funny. You get a lot of numbers telling that story?” Chuck’s rage spilled white-hot from his mouth, and the man in the door raised an eyebrow. “I’m a fucking Ranger, idiot, and the rest of us are dead, dying, or named Mako and Raleigh. And you’re none of the above, so get the hell out of my room.” He punctuated his words with a throw of the Rubik’s cube, aimed straight at the stranger’s head.

To Chuck’s surprise, he didn’t flinch, plucking the toy easily out of the air with his non-mechanical hand. “I guess I’ve been out of the game longer than I thought.” He strode into the room, examining the plastic cube for a minute before looking Chuck straight in the eye. “I’m Yancy Becket. _Former_ Ranger. Not a big fan of having projectiles thrown at me, but my brother’s alive because of you, so I’ll let it slide.”

“You’re supposed to be dead,” was all Chuck could manage to say.

“So are you,” Yancy said, returning the Rubik’s cube with an underhand toss that Chuck almost fumbled. “But here we are.”

The anger was starting to subside, leaving an odd residue of embarrassment in Chuck’s chest. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Retired Ranger outreach program,” Yancy said, completely deadpan. “Wouldn’t you know it, you’re the only stop on my list.”

Before he could come up with a suitably sarcastic reply, a tap on the door and the squeak of a rolling equipment rack signalled the nurse’s arrival. “Mr. Hansen? It’s time to take your vitals.”

“I’ll get out of your way,” Yancy said, smiling at the nurse. “We’ll finish talking later.”

It wasn’t until after the nurse had left that Chuck realized he’d wanted Yancy to stay.

\-----------------------------------

“You’re back.”

“I said I would be.” The elder Becket pulled the door shut behind him as he strolled into Chuck’s room, carrying a flat paper bag under his arm. “How’s things?”

“What, since yesterday? I’m pissing through a catheter, stuck in a hospital bed, and I can’t move or feel anything from the waist down.” He smirked. “But other than that, I’m fucking great.”

“That’s the spirit.” Yancy used his foot to shove a chair closer to the side of the bed, settling himself into it. “Hey, I brought you something.”

“What’s this?” The bag crinkled as he took it, and he peered inside cautiously.

“Just a couple of things to help keep you busy. Being stuck in bed is the worst.”

Chuck shook the contents out onto his lap: A notebook, a magazine, two pens, and...a coloring book and a box of crayons. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Hey, don’t knock it. I went through, like, ten of those things after I lost my arm.” Yancy chuckled. “It was a lot more challenging coloring left-handed, though. You’ll probably have an easier time with it.”

The door opened, cutting off the string of expletives Chuck was about to let loose. “I’m sorry, I meant to be back in here an hour ag-” Herc came to an abrupt stop when he realized his son wasn’t alone. “Yancy?”

“Hey, Marshal.” Yancy waved with his mechanical hand and gave Herc a cheesy grin.

“Hi, it’s..I mean...what are you doing here?” Chuck noted the circles under his father’s eyes with a small pang of guilt.

“Oh, I just thought I’d come keep Chuck company. Are you okay, sir?” Yancy had noticed Herc’s exhaustion as well.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I just fell asleep sitting with Stacker. Little groggy, still.” He tried to smile back at them, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Dad.” Chuck’s voice was gentle. “Why don’t you go get some rest. Yancy was going to stay and talk a while.” Herc set his jaw, but Chuck persevered. “I’m not going anywhere, I’ll be fine for three hours while you take a nap.”

“Okay, then.” Giving the two of them one last look, Herc made for the door.

The short interaction with his father had left Chuck feeling unsettled. “You don’t have to stay,” he said, staring down at the distractions in his lap. “I don’t actually feel much like talking.”

“We don’t have to talk.” Yancy grabbed the remote for the small TV mounted on the wall and started flipping through channels. “How do you feel about westerns?”

\---------------------------------------------------

_they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth_

Chuck jerked awake, covered in a cold sweat, his heart pounding as the monitors at his bedside screeched their warnings. It was only one nurse that showed up to check on him, this time, and he called out from the door first. “Nightmare?”

“Yeah. Sorry,” he wheezed from the bed.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said, coming in to pluck the clipboard off the wall to scribble his notes. “You’re sure you don’t want anything to help you sleep?”

“I’m sure.”

The nightmares had started with the tapering of his pain medication. They were possibly a symptom of the withdrawals. They were probably a symptom of trauma. Neither of those explanations were helping him sleep any better at night.

\-----------------------------------------------------

“I had nightmares for years,” Yancy said, using his left hand to eat vanilla pudding out of the cup cradled on his metal palm. “Sorry. I know that’s not very encouraging.”

“S’alright,” Chuck mumbled, trying not to look as disappointed as he felt. “Guess I’ll just have to take something to get some sleep.” John Wayne swaggered across the television screen as Yancy scraped the last of the pudding out of the plastic cup, then set it on the tray by the bed, not without some difficulty. Chuck watched him, still fascinated and feeling a little bolder about his curiosity. “So you actually...you Drift? With that arm?”

A warm smile spread across Yancy’s face. “Pretty great, huh? It’s the craziest thing, not like a full Drift, I’ve got these tiny sensor implants-” he pulled back the hair on his forehead so Chuck could see the minute scar just above one temple, barely half an inch long and thread-thin - “and they send and receive signals back and forth with the base,” he finished, tapping the metal cuff just below his elbow. “It’s not as seamless as the pons, there’s more of a delay, but the whole thing runs off a battery pack, so.” He shrugged. “I really can’t complain, there’s only three people using these in the world right now, including me.”

“Can you feel anything with it?”

“Kind of. Like I said, not seamless.” To Chuck’s surprise, Yancy reached out and took his hand, mechanical fingers sliding across his palm, the gears inside the prosthetic moving with a quiet vibration. “Like, right now, I know your hand is warm, even though I can’t feel it like I would with my other hand.” He squeezed gently, and a thrill ran down the back of Chuck’s neck. “I can’t tell if your skin is rough or smooth, I can’t make out all the little details. But I can feel the pressure from your grip, I can tell where our hands are touching.”

They sat quietly for a moment, hand in hand, and Yancy’s smile widened. “I felt that.”

“I didn’t even squeeze that hard!” Their hands were still intertwined when Raleigh walked in.

“Uhhh...Hey, Chuck. Yance?” To Raleigh’s credit, a raised eyebrow was his only reaction. “I need you for something.”

“Sure.” Yancy released Chuck’s hand. “I’ll see you later, kid. You done with those coloring books yet?”

“I’ve got a few pages left,” Chuck replied, heat rising in his cheeks. “Maybe bring me some crossword puzzles next time.”

“You got it,” Yancy said, and left Chuck by himself to sort out the cause of the sudden flutter in his chest.

\------------------------------------------------

“Yancy’s been around a lot, hasn’t he?” Herc looked more rested than he had in weeks. Chuck wasn’t sure if it was because Stacker was finally stable, even half-conscious some of the time, or if it was because Chuck kept running him off to go nap every time Yancy stopped by.

“Yeah.” Best to be vague until he could figure out what his father was driving at. “I like him. He helps me.”

The admission seemed to surprise Herc - he paused for a long moment, as though he couldn’t quite think of the words he wanted. “That’s good to hear. He’s a good man. You seem a lot happier lately.”

Chuck got the distinct feeling that his father had just given him his approval, although he couldn’t say for what.

\-------------------------------------------------------

“You’re still not sleeping.” Where Herc had started to look more rested, Chuck definitely did not. The circles under his eyes had darkened and his face drooped, making him look older than his twenty-one years. Yancy shook his head. “I thought you were gonna let them give you something.”

“I don’t like the drugs. They make me foggy.” His lower lip jutted out in what was almost a pout. “I think they’re going to start making me, though.”

“Do you want me to stay with you tonight?” Apparently mistaking stunned silence for reluctance, Yancy kept talking. “I bet the nurses would let me, I’m in here all the time anyway. Plus I brought them cookies yesterday. I’ll sleep on the chair-bed-thing. Maybe you’ll sleep better if you know someone’s in here with you.”

“Okay,” Chuck heard himself say. “It’s lights out at 9.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

_gnashed their terrible teeth_

_we’ll eat you up, we love you so_

**_be still!_ **

His eyes opened slowly this time, and the monitors maintained their steady beat as Chuck realized he was awake. His left side felt unusually warm...an arm was slung across his chest, hand pressed to Chuck’s heart, and he realized Yancy was curled up in the bed beside him. He turned his head to look over his shoulder.

Yancy stirred slightly. “You were thrashing around, so I held you,” he mumbled sleepily. “Thought you were having another nightmare.”

“I was,” Chuck whispered back, “but it stopped.”

“Good,” his sandy-haired bedmate yawned. “G’night.”

“Night,” Chuck murmured, bringing a hand up to cover Yancy’s, soaking up his warmth as he drifted blissfully back to sleep.


End file.
